AK 239: The Enemy Is Already Here

MAA was only twenty-three years old and a U.S. citizen because he was born in Minneapolis to Somali parents. MAA had no friends or family in Portland and was coming only to study engineering. The FBI had given us this really stupid six-month rule from the Department of Justice (DOJ). If the guy you are surveilling doesn’t do anything criminal within six months you must stop all surveillance. Court order or no court order!

Now my best friend in school was Muslim but after entire evenings discussing politics and religion I still couldn’t understand how an American citizen could get on a plane and go join ISIS. But that is exactly what MAA’s brother had done! Never to be seen or heard again! After reading literally dozens of these files at the office my team concluded something no one else at the FBI had concluded: While some of these guys were radicalized, others were just plain bored and wanted some excitement.

Suddenly, my senses transported me back to reality! The sun had completely emerged from its slumber and the snow would soon be a blistering white. I had been climbing since before 4 a.m. but this made it all worth it.

Fortunately, I was given a great pair of Ray Ban Aviator Polarized lenses and I had purchased zinc oxide at Government Camp the night before for my nose: Old school all the way!

I had spent the night with old friends from school at this beautiful twenty-five-room chalet my science teacher from school owned. We had a great night telling old stories that, now, with the passage of time, might have been just slightly exaggerated. I felt like a kid again by running on only two hours of sleep!

I smeared the oxide all over my nose. Kids would think I was some crazy old man but I didn’t care. I stood out from some of the very white locals with my naturally dark skin but I could still get sunburned. You actually can get an Oregonian sunburn in December as the sun and snow can still really magnify and burn you.

As the sun brightened, I was on the Hogsback, the last stretch before the top of the mountain. I had already traversed around the Bergshrund Crevasse.

The day was perfect. Clear, except for some patchy fog in the lowlands. Just as I was admiring the stunning beauty, my crampon slipped and some ice gave away from under my foot. Okay, don’t panic. Everything’s fine.

While this looked like a harmless, beautiful white landscape I knew that if I fell here I wouldn’t be able to stop ’til I fell another 300 hundred feet into the Devil’s Kitchen. It was a fumarole, a vent that releases toxic volcanic gases, such as deadly sulfur, from deep inside the earth.[3]

Several people died on Hood just from being trapped near the gases and not being able to hike out in time. This morning I could see the deadly gases puffing like Indian smoke signals, out of what looked to be a bottomless pit. I was told, no one knew how deep that crevasse was and thought:

And I don’t wanna find out!

After regaining my footing, I looked up and couldn’t believe my eyes. There were two people above me already at the top of the Old Chute, which is near the top of the mountain! As I looked closer one had on a t-shirt and jeans!

No helmets and probably not even crampons.

Twenty-four degrees and in a t-shirt?

Morons!

With loose rocks surrounding them I actually mumbled out loud,

“Crazy!”

No sooner had I finished saying that than I heard a shriek.

The guy slipped and is now shooting toward me like a bullet.

His girlfriend began screaming!

I yelled, “Dig in! Dig in! But quickly I realize the poor kid has on an old pair of tennis shoes.”

I pull my ice pick but quickly realize this will likely do me no good. So, I sling the pick around my wrist and take my twenty-five-foot rope and tosses it into the path of the speeding bullet yelling,

“Grab the rope!”

As this perfect stranger hurdles toward me on his back, I wrap the rope around my waist and think,

Goodbye cruel world!

Miraculously, the guy hits my rope and the rope tangles onto his arm as he now rolls.

Unfortunately for me I didn’t have time to calculate the inertia that would be involved in my stupidity. I’m immediately catapulted into the air on the other end of the rope, flying downhill.

Now both of us idiots are going to die today! I thought.

I struggle to get the ice pick into the ice but instead it’s acting more like a ceiling fan whirling dangerously around my head, the sharp edge coming closer and closer.

Everything is now in slow motion.

Nice move, JD! I’m gonna die twice today! Once with my own icepick and then again in the crevasse!

I’m finally able to grab the handle of the ice pick but this is now the least of my worries.

In a second I’m going to hit the crevasse but first we both go flying over the smaller Bergshrund crevasse as though it’s not even there!

The bloody body of this poor guy I’m attached to has been sliced like sushi over ice.